If you have an outdoor or work-oriented lifestyle, what you really need is part truck, part passenger-friendly SUV. Ford, among others, attempted to fill that need with the Sport Trac, introduced in late 2000 as a 2001 model based on the second-gen Explorer.

Here are some of the finest midsize SUVs on the market: Ford's best-selling Explorer, the GMC Envoy (Motor Trend's 2002 SUV of the Year), and the freshly revised Jeep Grand Cherokee, a former version of which took home the North American Truck of the Year award in 1999.